Oral administration of drugs is generally preferred for reasons of patient comfort and compliance. However, many drugs, including many opioids, are poorly soluble at neutral pH, and are thus are poorly or variably absorbed when delivered orally. Consequently, many such drugs are administered through more invasive routes, such as by sublingual, buccal, subcutaneous, or intravenous routes.
Several approaches for improving the oral delivery of poorly soluble drugs have demonstrated some promise. For example, poorly soluble drugs have been administered as dispersions in large amounts of fatty acids, and have been wet-milled to yield nanoparticles. However, each of those approaches suffers from certain drawbacks, such as, e.g., inadequate stability, difficulty of manufacture, adverse interactions with the drug to be delivered, or the use of toxic amounts of adjuvants or inhibitors. Thus, there remains a need for compositions and methods for the non-invasive delivery of poorly soluble drugs.